Right-hander Domingo German brings another big-time arm to the Yankees’ system. But the question is whether he’ll use it best as a starter or reliever down the road. MILB.com photo

Today, we continue the annual rundown of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders Blog’s Top 15 Yankees Prospects of 2015 by breaking down the No. 6 prospect in the organization: right-hander Domingo German.

Bats-Throws: Right-RightHeight: 6-2Weight: 175Age: 22Position: Starting pitcher
In 2014: One of the burgeoning prospects in the pitching-rich Miami Marlins system, German spent the entire season at Class A Greensboro, going 9-3 with a 2.41 ERA in 25 starts. His numbers were nothing short of dominant, striking out 113 batters in 123.1 innings while walking just 25. He appeared as Miami’s representative in the Futures Game in July, pitching a perfect second inning for the World team. During that frame, he struck out two of the game’s biggest prospects, the Cubs’ Kris Bryant and Texas’ Joey Gallo. The Yankees acquired him from the Marlins along with pitcher Nathan Eovaldi in the deal that sent Martin Prado and David Phelps to Miami.

What’s to like?

The Yankees needed some stronger, rising prospects on the mound, and acquiring German in that trade with the Marlins certainly gave them one.

The book on him has always been that he’s a strikethrower, and it’s easy to see that’s accurate. He gave up a lot of hits for a guy with his stuff in a lower-level league, but that can be attributed to the fact that he’s always around the zone. He walked only 25 batters, though, and when you’re 22 and you have a 4.5-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio, you’re doing something right.

His stuff is solid. In that inning in the Futures Game — which is how everybody who has seen German knows him — he blew a 95 mph fastball past Bryant and got Gallo on an 82 mph slider with some wicked tilt. He also has a changeup that is developing, which if he can harness it and get some confidence in it, would make him a legitimate three-pitch pitcher.

What’s to worry about?
Is he a reliever?: That inning in the Futures Game changed a lot for German, because he flashed stuff as a reliever that he really never did as a starter. As a starter, that fastball sat 89-93 mph and had hard sink at times. The slider has not consistently been as sharp as it looked in that inning, either. Now, you know scouts. They’re always looking to rush a power arm to the bullpen, especially if they can make a case the fastball is much different out of the pen and the secondary stuff isn’t dynamic enough to make him an excellent starter.

The changeup: It isn’t a great pitch right now, and there are some scouts who don’t believe it ever will be an effective pitch. But if German is going to be a starter, the change needs to be there for him. He uses it plenty, and there are times it is far more effective than others. But the consistency is going to be the key with it.

Command: German doesn’t particularly command the fastball well, never mind the slider or the change. He is the walking definition of the difference between command and control. The latter, he has. But he needs to get the fastball to better spots at times, because as a starter, his stuff is not overpowering enough to get away with just firing it over the inner and outer thirds.

Whats coming up?

German will open the season at high-A Tampa, most likely. But he is a guy who can move fairly quickly up the ladder. He’s 22, which is by no means old. But he’s at the age where some success is going to get him fast-tracked.

And clearly, German is good enough to have a lot of success. He had it last season with the Marlins, and he should be able to get off to a good start in the pitcher-friendly Florida State League. But to be fair, he needs to develop the third pitch and stay a starter, because as a reliever, he’d be pushed much lower down lists like this.

If any Phillies fans remember, maybe about 10 years ago, they had a prospect by the name of Elizardo Ramirez who reminds me a little of what German is now. A guy with good mechanics who gave up some hits but had good stuff and good control. Ramirez never panned out. German has better stuff now than Ramirez had then, the type of stuff that could easily convert to the bullpen. But the idea is the same. If German doesn’t learn to command everything a little big better than he has to now, he’ll learn that strikes get hit around when batters figure they’re coming.

If he does improve his command, though, look out. This guy has the arm to be very special.

Video

Here’s that Futures Game appearance. He had a 91-96 mph fastball with sink, and an effective slider. The pitch he is spiking over and over again is the changeup.

This is a look at him from last season. You’ll notice the velocity in this game wasn’t what it was in that one inning in the Futures Game. Still a pretty effective pitcher though.

The Yankees don’t generally announce these types of moves, but BA gets them all in their database, so I will try to keep you as updated as I can on them on a weekly basis.

The most notable player on this list is Burton, but we know the Yankees re-signed him yesterday. Only one of them, Gerritse, had ever appeared in a game for the RailRiders — and it was for one game last season, in which he threw two scoreless innings.

Cote was a former third-round pick who got hit really hard last season at Staten Island and Charleston (101 hits allowed in 73.1 innings). Calderon and Hernandez were working in the Triple-A group for a time this spring.

While I was waiting for my ride home at the airport in Allentown yesterday, I did a fairly brief, impromptu chat session on Twitter, and someone asked me a question I hadn’t put much thought into:

“Who are the best players you’ve seen that nobody is talking about?”

We’re in the midst of our annual Top 15 Yankees Prospects list here on the blog, but on my first day home from spring training coverage, it strikes me that maybe this is a good time to pause and talk about some of the players who get very little prospect attention, but who caught my eye over the last week. The great thing about spring training is that I see everybody, and while I sure don’t have to look at my roster to tell you who Luis Severino or Aaron Judge or Greg Bird or Mason Williams or Tyler Austin or Kyle Roller are when they come to the plate or take the mound, there are other players who did great things all week and did force me to pull out the trusty roster to see who the heck they were.

Not sure any of them will reach elite prospect status. But they all do something really well. So, take this for what you will.

Gary Sanchez, at just 22, seems like he has been a top Yankees prospect forever. He’ll likely make his RailRiders debut on opening day. MILB.com photo

Today, we continue the annual rundown of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders Blog’s Top 15 Yankees Prospects of 2015 by breaking down the No. 7 prospect in the organization: prolific hitting catcher Gary Sanchez.

In 2014: As was the plan for him at the outset, Sanchez spent the entire season at Trenton, continuing his remarkable string of consistent power seasons at the plate. He hit .270/.338/.406 with 19 doubles, 13 homers and 65 RBIs. Despite not turning 22 until December, Sanchez hit reached double digits in homers for the fourth time in as many seasons.

What’s to like?

Sanchez hits.

It’s rare to see the type of consistent power Sanchez has produced from a player as young as he is. But Double-A pitching only slightly slowed his progression. He hit at least two homers in every month last year, with a high of five coming in May. He drove in 12 or more runs in every month but June, when he had seven. He hit better than .300 in April, then again in July. But the thing the Yankees have to like so much about him at the plate is that he rarely has an unproductive month at the plate.

While it’s difficult to call striking out 91 times a positive, it’s hardly an unacceptable total for a young slugger who in many ways is still learning the game. He makes good contact, drives the ball well and gets enough loft to be a solid home run hitter in the big leagues.

The part of his game few people talk about is his throwing arm, which is top notch. He threw out 39 percent of attempted base stealers last season, which was easily better than either of the two RailRiders catchers with much better defensive reputations — John Ryan Murphy and Austin Romine — were able to manage in 2014.
What’s to worry about?

Defense: The problem with being a catcher is that there is more to catching than just throwing runners out, and there isn’t anybody who has seen the three who would debate that Sanchez is a better defender than Murphy or Romine. Not even close. The Yankees love defensive-minded catchers who can hit, but right now, Sanchez is just a catcher who can hit. The book on him is that he needs to be more committed to the little things. A few years ago, when he was at low-A Charleston, Sanchez refused to catch a bullpen session and was sent back to extended spring training in Tampa to learn a lesson.

Commitment: Some of the little things that help pitchers out — guiding pitch selection, blocking balls in the dirt, framing pitches — are things scouts and the Yankees development people figured he’d be good enough to understand and adapt to as he got older and more experienced. But, he hasn’t improved in those areas in leaps and bounds.
What’s coming up?

This is either a year that Sanchez is going to make the necessary adjustments behind the plate to push himself to another level, or the year the Yankees are going to have to accept that it might not happen. Catchers who come to Scranton/Wilkes-Barre tend to make a big jump defensively, and I think working more with the veteran pitchers helps out with that. But it can also be a tough place for a youngster who doesn’t want to do the work. Jesus Montero, early on, wasn’t coddled in Triple-A. He had to learn how to work hard to stay behind the plate as long as he did.

Certainly, Sanchez is in no danger of being moved to another position. But the Yankees are approaching the second-year of a long-term deal with Brian McCann, and if Sanchez is going to squeeze his way into the big leagues with the Yankees, he’s going to have to do so as a backup who can defend.

All that said, if it weren’t for the fact that his path to becoming a big-league starter was essentially blocked, Sanchez would be a much-better rated prospect on this list. He still has premium tools offensively, and an almost savant-like ability to produce at the dish. The question is what the Yankees will do with him — what they can do with him — if he makes a big jump defensively soon. He’s a 22-year-old who has been young for his league at every step of the way, and he’ll be that way again this year. Certainly, he’ll be one of the youngest regular players in the International League. But the clock is ticking for a guy already on the 40-man who is about a year away from giving the big leagues a go offensively. He could, like fellow slugging catching prospects Montero and Peter O’Brien before him, be trade bait come July if the defense doesn’t work out.

Video

The YES Network did a feature on Sanchez last season. He discussed his progress defensively a bit there. Good insight, also, from then-Trenton manager Tony Franklin and Marcus Thames, who will be the RailRiders’ hitting coach this season.

Pitchers don’t seem to mind his defense. Here’s another look at that from YES.

Eric Jagielo isn’t a perfect prospect. But he’s what the Yankees need — a third base prospect who can hit homers. MILB.com photo.

Today, we continue the annual rundown of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders Blog’s Top 15 Yankees Prospects of 2015 by breaking down the No. 8 prospect in the organization: slugging third baseman Eric Jagielo.

In 2014: Another of the three big-time first-round picks the Yankees secured in the 2013 draft, Jagielo had an injury-riddled first full season in pro ball. He was off to a nice start, with 10 homers and 31 RBIs in his first 42 games. Then, he strained his oblique and was lost for more than a month. He returned in July and was able to play out the Florida State League season healthy, but he wasn’t quite as productive in his final 43 games as he was in his first 42, hitting .261 with six homers and 23 RBIs during that span. However, his OBP rose, as did his batting average. He was planning to head to the Arizona Fall League to recoup some of the at-bats he lost because of the oblique injury, but he was hit in the face with a pitch during an instructional league game, which required surgery to repair a broken bone near his eye. He missed the fall league.

What’s to like?

The Yankees took Jagielo in the first round in 2013 because they didn’t have a solid, power-hitting third base prospect in the system. Lo and behold, he turned into one of the rare draft picks who has performed just about exactly to expectations.

In his first 146 pro games, Jagielo is at .259/.360/.457 with 30 doubles, 24 homers and 85 RBIs. He improved last season, nearly matching his GCL and Staten Island totals in high-Class A (with 16 homers and 54 RBIs) but in seven fewer games. He has a pull stroke, and he can really drive the ball to right — which obviously would be a boon at Yankee Stadium.

Jagielo will be 22 when the 2015 season starts, which is young for a college hitter with what amounts to a season-and-a-half in a professional organization. He has some time to improve, considering he’s young and that the Yanks have signed Chase Headley to play third base for four years.

What’s to worry about?

No defense: It’s admittedly difficult to find a scout who loves Jagielo, and there are some good reasons for that. For starters, he’s ranked eighth on this list because he’s playing third base, and the Yankees are giving him a shot there. But there are plenty of scouts who don’t think he can handle the position, and the numbers back up the knock on him coming out of Notre Dame that he didn’t have the range or the arm to stick there. He made 16 errors in just 62 games at the hot corner in Tampa, and that’s obviously far, far too many.

Filling a need: The truth is, Jagielo might be a first baseman masquerading at third base, and if he is ultimately taken from third and moved across the diamond, I’m not sure I’d rank him higher as a first base prospect than I ranked Kyle Roller — who has a better bat — at No. 15. To be useful to the Yankees, the guy has to play third.

Swinging and missing: Also, if he wants to ultimately help the Yankees, he needs to make contact on a more consistent basis. One of the new metrics plenty of scouts are looking at now is contact percentage, which is the percentage of swings on which a batter makes contact. They haven’t provided those types of statistics for hitters below Triple-A yet, but it stands to reason given the stats that Jagielo’s is fairly low. Now, you can have a lower contact percentage if you have supreme power potential (and it’s debatable whether Jagielo has that), but he’s striking out at a better-than one strikeout per game average over his career. That’s an unacceptable rate and one he will have to improve.

What’s coming up?

For all the faults in his game, and all the concerns with his all-or-nothing swing and his shaky defense, Jagielo’s numbers — the ones that made him a first-round pick, anyway — have been pretty good. He’s a home run threat who is still playing third base. And, he’ll continue to do that this season, most likely opening at Double-A Trenton, where he’ll be a 22-year-old looking to improve perception.

The Yankees have some time to work with him, both offensively and defensively. So there’s no sense pushing him now. But this is a big season for his prospect status, given that he’s going to have to show significant improvement defensively to stay at third.

Video

This is an interesting look at Jagielo, because it shows some of his college swings early, followed by his work so far in the Yankees organization. You can easily see some differences in his swing from college until now. It’s still a long swing, but you can see the Yankees have worked to shorten it. They’ve also changed his hand placement.

Jorge Mateo could be the shortstop of the future for the New York Yankees. But that future is still a way off. Photo by MILB.com

Today, we continue the annual rundown of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders Blog’s Top 15 Yankees Prospects of 2015 by breaking down the No. 9 prospect in the organization: exciting young shortstop Jorge Mateo.

In 2014: Mateo made his debut stateside in the Gulf Coast League last summer, hitting .276 with a .354 OBP and stealing 11 bases in 15 games. He made just one error in 59 chances at shortstop.

What’s to like?

OK, so you’re probably wondering why someone who has played in exactly 15 games in the United States, someone who might not open the season in even low-A ball this season, winds up on a top prospects list that admittedly places more emphasis on players who can help out in the big leagues sooner.

But, Mateo is potentially so good that he can’t be left off the list.

The Yankees signed Mateo for a hefty $250,000 in 2012 out of the Dominican, and he’s the type of athlete they simply didn’t have just hanging around in the system. Some scouts say his speed may rate as high as an 80 on the 20-80 scouting scale. Unlike a lot of young shortstops who can play defense, Mateo projects as a pretty good hitter. He has a feel for the strike zone, and he controls the bat well.

What’s to worry about?

It’s early: Mateo is 19, and he may open in Staten Island at midseason. So he’s a long, long way from New York. And in the time it realistically will take him to get that far, anything and everything could happen. Injuries. Inconsistency. Body growth that would require a position change. Anything.

Cleaning things up: What you hear most about Mateo is that he needs a little bit of work in every facet of the game. Most scouts believe that’s a good thing for a 19-year-old, especially one with the athleticism Mateo brings. He gets by on that speed when it comes to defense, but some refinement of his footwork and better technique could push him near Gold Glove level at short, obviously a prime defensive position. At the plate, he has a big swing — bigger than the Yankees would want him to implement going forward, considering his speed. He’ll need to shorten that, as well.

What’s coming up?

Mateo will be the star of the lower minor leagues in the Yankees organization this season, with Aaron Judge and Eric Jagielo and Luis Severino slated to start in Double-A. So wherever he opens, all eyes will be on him. And, rightfully so.

There isn’t much known about Mateo, because so few scouts have actually had a chance to look at him, never mind so few reporters or fans, for that matter. But there are members of the organization who will tell you that Mateo could be the shortstop of the future. And the Yankees haven’t had one of those to be excited about since the early 1990s.

Video

The good people at Fangraphs actually got to the GCL last year and shot some video of Mateo. This is probably the first look a lot of people got at him. If you have a stopwatch handy, time him going from home to first. I got him at 3.96 seconds from the crack of the bat to touching the bag. That’s movin’.

In 2014: Mitchell started the season in Double-A, made a few appearances in Triple-A with the RailRiders, then lived the dream by making his big-league debut in August. Long one of the more intriguing right-handers in the system, Mitchell lived up to his billing as a prime talent, allowing just three runs on 10 hits in 11 innings with the Yankees. He was even better with the RailRiders, going 4-2 with a 3.67 ERA, lowering his always troubling walk rate and steadying a starting rotation that needed someone to eat some innings. He got into the fifth inning in every one of his eight starts with the RailRiders — quite an accomplishment for a RailRiders pitcher in the bumpy summer of 2014.

What’s to like?

Well, any discussion every conducted with anyone in the Yankees organization about Bryan Mitchell always seems to start with the same two words: His stuff.

His four-seamer is one Mitchell regularly runs up to the plate at 94-95 mph, and with the RailRiders last year, he was firing it even harder at times.

He has added a cut fastball which, naturally, doesn’t come in as hard — it’s a low-90s pitch when it has real movement — but it was an effective offering. His curveball remains inconsistent and is not the 12-to-6 pitch it looked like it could be at times in the past. But it did keep a lot of Triple-A hitters trying to stay on that fastball off balance.

The most promising pitch he threw, though, was a changeup that he commanded much better with the RailRiders than he had in the past. If he wants to remain a starter, that’s the pitch he’s going to need.

But even more than his stuff, the fact that Mitchell’s results were pretty good last season has to be an encouraging sign for the Yankees. He was below the line at Trenton last year, posting a 4.84 ERA. But with the RailRiders, the ERA dropped to 3.67, and he appeared more willing to pitch to contact and let his defense work for him.

You’d be sitting in the press box watching Greene pitch. You’d see the radar gun light up at 94…95…96. Then you’d watch him throw a slider that falls completely off the table. Then you’d watch a change-up that, in comparison to that fastball, seems to take forever to get to the plate before falling perilously toward the dirt.

And while you’d be marveling at that stuff, Greene would be getting knocked around the ballpark.

Mitchell has always had that same tendency. He flashes million-dollar stuff, and at year’s end, his ERA is in the 4.5-4.7 range, and his strikeout rate per nine innings hovers in the mid-7s. The thing with Greene was that, after a dreadful start to 2014 with the RailRiders, he strung a few nice starts in a row together at the right time and got a call to the big leagues. And, he pitched well there. Mitchell did the same thing. After a couple of strong starts with the RailRiders, he got a big league promotion and has some people thinking based on that he has a chance to be really good.
Control: The issue with Mitchell going forward will be the same issue Mitchell has always had: Will he be able to command his pitches well enough to maximize the stuff? This stat doesn’t tell the whole story with command. But last season, he walked 4.3 batters per nine innings at Trenton, which is far too many. In 2012, he walked 5.4. He was at 3.6 in 2013, and it was 3.5 in his time with the RailRiders. In New York, it was 2.3.
Has he changed?: When Mitchell throws strikes, he has been an effective pitcher. When he hasn’t, he isn’t one. He falls behind in counts and hands the opponent scoring chances and nobody misses even a good fastball in the pros if a guy like Mitchell has to throw it down the middle. Mitchell has had stretches in his career where his mechanics and command are good enough to make him effective. But he has always reverted back to wildness. He’s going to need to show that won’t happen in 2015.
What’s to come?

After his promising three outings with the Yankees, New York gave him a chance to compete for a spot this spring. It seems likely they’d prefer he open the season in the RailRiders rotation, though. Even with the fifth starter’s spot wide open.

Mitchell has great stuff and a great make-up, and there’s no reason he can’t be an effective big-league pitcher at some point, even if it’s out of someone’s bullpen. But the Yankees realize his upside is high, if they can harness the little things with him. Last season, it appeared they were on the right track. So, of all the players on this list, Mitchell might be the closest to the big leagues.

Video

Here’s Mitchell working in his big-league debut against Cleveland last August.

This is a behind-the-batter look at Mitchell’s repertoire. It looks like all of his pitches are included.

Tyler Austin got back into the swing of things last summer in Trenton. He should get a chance to prove he is completely over a nagging wrist injury this season with the RailRiders. Photo by Trenton Thunder

Today, we continue the annual rundown of the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre RailRiders Blog’s Top 15 Yankees Prospects of 2015 by breaking down the No. 11 prospect in the organization: hard-hitting outfielder Tyler Austin.

In 2014: Once one of the most promising offensive prospects in the Yankees system, Austin sought to erase the memory of an injury-riddled 2013 season. But 2014 got off to another sluggish start, with Austin hitting .248/.309/.356 with four homers and 26 RBIs at the Eastern League All-Star break. But something clicked from there, and Austin looked strikingly similar to the hitter he had been throughout his career before suffering that bone bruise in his wrist in 2013. From July 17 on, Austin hit .336/.397/.557 with five homers and 21 RBIs. The Yankees took notice and placed him on the 40-man roster at season’s end.
What’s to like?

When Austin is healthy, Austin hits.

In 2011, he hit .354 with 36 RBIs in 47 games at Staten Island and in the GCL.

In 2012, he hit .322 with 17 homers and 80 RBIs at four stops, but mostly in Class A.

In 2013, he started in Double-A, where his numbers were improving month by month. But he had to shut it down for a while in July with the wrist injury, and he wasn’t the same hitter when he came back.

He’s a big, strong right-handed hitter who doesn’t have light-tower power. But he doesn’t strike out a lot, hits the ball to all fields and looks like he has a very solid approach at the plate. Of all the Yankees outfield prospects, he’s the one who probably projects best as a .300 hitter — and if you add 15-20 homers and a bunch of RBIs with that, he starts to look like a pretty solid player.

He also provides some defensive flexibility. He spent most of his time in right field last season, but he also played quite a bit of first base and some third.

What’s to worry about?

The injury: Well, I guess that’s partly what the early going in 2015 is going to be about. He has to show that the wrist injury is a thing of the past. Sure, it was likely a thing of the past at some point last year, and the strong second half just buried it. But he has to build off that Trenton performance and stay healthy.

The position: OK, so stating earlier that Austin provides some defensive flexibility is maybe overstating it a bit. The Yankees have never hidden the fact that they worry about Austin’s ability to be a solid defender, and scouts concur. He works hard at it, but it’s going to be a process with him. He probably projects best as a first baseman down the road, which doesn’t lead you to believe he’ll have the defensive versatility in five years that he does now.

The athleticism: Austin is a pretty good athlete for his size, but he looks bigger every year than he did the one before. He has thick limbs and while he showed some promising base-running speed early in his career, it has come back to the level you’d expect of someone with his body type. He’s just not going to be an above-average runner.
What’s to come?

Austin is a very intriguing prospect again, because while he’s hardly a five-tool player, the one tool that separates him from others — his bat — came back with such ferocity late last season.

Two years ago, Austin ranked No. 1 on this list. The fact he has dropped to 11 in two years is more indicative of the Yankees’ recent drafts and international signings than any loss in confidence in Austin. In the second half last season, he was what he was when he earned that No. 1 ranking — am impact bat who can fit into the middle of any order. He has good power to left, but his natural power stroke is to right-center, and that would fit very well in Yankee Stadium. Offensively, he’s a bit like Jesus Montero, the former top prospect in the Yankees organization who hit a bunch of bombs for Scranton/Wilkes-Barre in 2010 and 2011. Austin doesn’t have that same type of raw, natural power. But he’s got the same type of tendencies.

Austin should open 2015 by being pushed to Triple-A, where he’ll be an everyday fixture in the RailRiders lineup. He’ll likely keep playing a few different positions, but the place to really watch him is at the plate. He can’t defend his way to the big leagues. He’ll have to slug his way there.

Video

Here’s a really good look at Austin’s 2014 season, courtesy of the YES Network.

This is an at-bat from last July, right when Austin was starting to turn things around.

If you’re a prospective writer who wants to cover baseball, trust me: You may want to check this out.

My good friend Patrick Teale of PinstripesPlus.com — a website that covers Yankees prospects up and down the system — is looking for an intern to cover some RailRiders games and do some stories on the prospects this season. Here’s the info, if you want to throw your hat in the ring.

“PinstripesPlus.com is currently looking for sports writing interns to help cover the Scranton RailRiders. The internship involves attending home games of the RailRiders, interviewing the players and coaches, and writing feature articles. Anybody interested should contact Patrick Teale at pinstripesplus@aol.com.”

I personally know a colleague, the lovely and talented Shane Hennigan, who did some great work helping Patrick out two seasons ago. It was a terrific experience for him. It can be for you, too.

Baseball isn't limited to box scores and game stories, and neither is baseball news. Stay in the know with insight, breaking news and other RailRiders nuggets from Times-Tribune beat writer Donnie Collins. He'll check in regularly with transactions, game-day information and more than a few opinions.